Remember when Ann Althouse asserted that late-counted votes were evidence of vote fraud when her preferred candidate was losing? Well, it seems as if the final count will see her preferred candidate come out on top. So does she think that this count is probably fraudulent too, based on her established principles? I think you know the answer:

I wonder if the concept of fraud is suddenly much more appealing to certain people.

Hey, suddenly Prosser is ahead in the vote tally. I wonder if the fraud poo-pooers are singing a different tune now.

Yes. It’s otherpeople changing their tune on vote fraud. Oddly, the only non-hypothetical person we see changing their position on fraud is Althouse. Who woulda thought it?

Post navigation

So does she think that this count is probably fraudulent too, based on her established principles?

Well, no.

I think the only thing that her blogging has established over the years is that she has no principles.

It’s what makes her qualified to be an unprincipled hack.

Malaclypse

Oddly, the only non-hypothetical person we see changing their position on fraud is Althouse.

I prefer to believe that Althouse is, in fact, hypothetical. Otherwise I would need to believe that a drink-soaked non-Trotskyist popinjay could get tenure at an actual institution of higher learning.

DrDick

I have long suggested that there is a nationwide affirmative action program in the country’s law schools which requires them to hire a certain percentage of grossly unqualified conservative hacks.

Anonymous

Ann Althouse, Glenn Reynolds, William Jacobsen…hard to argue with you there.

timb

Jacobsen is only a “tenured” law “professor” in the sense that a PE teacher is a member of the English faculty. Law school professors teach ideas and theory; clinical professors practice law with students.

Both have their value, but only one is really academia

Hogan

Hey hey, I may be drink-soaked and a popinjay, but I . . . uh, what was the third thing?

What Democrats really poo-poo is voter fraud (ineligible voters voting, or voters voting more than once), which is a subset of election fraud. Republicans talk about voter fraud all the time, with scarcely any evidence of it, because they want to restrict the franchise by making voting inconvenient. The Bush administration’s major multi-state voter fraud project came up with almost nothing.

DrDick

Outhouse’s only established principles are that anything which produces her desired outcome is good and anything which prevents it is bad.

Davis

It’s very simple. Only Democrats engage in voter fraud, so no hypocrisy!

Stitch

So we Democrats are just going to meekly accept this, to prove how reasonable we are?

Malaclypse

We did in 2000, with much higher stakes.

Scott Lemieux

To be clear, if there’s actual evidence of vote fraud, it’s not hypocrisy to make the claim!

We know for a FACT that Republicans were willing to use ‘false flag’ operations if they could find situations in which it was safe.

In light of what is happening in Wisconisn we need to set up a fund that pays for re-counts of every Republican elected in this country. There are simply too many Republicans in charge of vote counting in this country and they’ve demonstrated time and time again they cannot be trusted.

I can just as easily conclude Republicans looked at the poor turnout and said, “Here’s how we come up with the votes we need. Look at all these people who didn’t vote Waukesha!”

Viola, suddenly the stats match!

RECOUNT NOW!!

owlbear1

And I mean NOW! We can’t give the Wisconsin Republican Koch suckers the time to fill out 7500 ballots.

mark f

It’s possible and I’ve got nothing against a recount, but if I were betting I’d put my money on the disappointing outcome.

owlbear1

Yes, I have little doubt the ballots are ready.

mark f

Yeah, you’re right. What probably happened was one entire town decided to sit at home on election day and no one at the town hall is pointing that out. That’s much more likely than someone fucking up a spreadsheet.

owlbear1

And Silver himself says the original counts are not outliers. They fall within the margin of error.

It doesn’t take a huge change in the percentages to flip this election.

A ‘safe’ operation. I have no doubt a recount will turn up those ballots. And a win for Prosser.

We need to stop letting Republicans HIDE when they count!

mark f

I may be under the mistaken impression that it was only the reporting to the AP that was mistaken and that the official tallies have never been in dispute. Apologies for the snark.

Well then you’re going to be really annoyed with me, a French professor, when I point out that the correct orthography (see what I did there? “spelling” isn’t good enough for LGM) is “n’est-ce pas.” That’s because it’s the inversion manner of posing a negative question with “c’est.”

Now although “n’est-ce pas” is the way to ask for agreement with a negative (“isn’t that so,”), one (see what I did there? what a pretentious Francophile way of saying “you”) can also say “isn’t it the case that” with “est-ce que ce n’est pas [vrai — for example]”.

Why all this pedantry? To show that it’s just the mirror image of your shtick (that’s Yiddish, you know), Pasta: find something that irritates libs and run with it. It can be done with more or less skill in aggravating your enemy. Your success rate is about 10% I’d say.

Pastafarian

Hypocrisy? Oh noes.

Speaking as a Rethuglikkkan, I have to say that my attitude toward fraud remains unchanged: It’s rampant among Democrats, and if Prosser wins this by 7,000 votes, it’s because he had about 20,000 more actual legitimate votes.

And had the vote total not been misreported, the Democrats would have manufactured just enough fraudulent votes to overcome those extra 7,000, the night after the election. This delay in the final tally really threw a monkey-wrench into their plans.

Here, let me save you the time:

“Cite!! Where’s your evidence?!!”

And then I’ll provide links, and you’ll shit on them because they’re from “conservative sources” like Faux Noise, not real, credible sources (the definition of which is “those that report only things with which we agree.”)

So I won’t bother linking to the taped interview with the fine, upstanding citizen of Cleveland who boasted of voting 12 times for Obama, and earning $10 from ACORN for each vote. I won’t bore you with the whole 200,000 fraudulent vote cover-up by SoS Brunner.

Why bother?

Just consider: One party favors steps that would curtail fraud, and the other opposes them — on the basis that obtaining an ID would be more onerous than, say, registering to vote. And that little bit of extra inconvenience is worth risking having legitimate voters’ votes cancelled out by fraudulent votes.

mark f

I continue to find it hilarious that you’ve chosen a pseudonym that mocks dogmatic beliefs.

Pastafarian

I find it hilarious that you’re unable to see the dogma on your own side, mark.

“…cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

mark f

If you don’t read the threads you’re participating in people might start to think you’re an idiot.

Also, I am still willing to tell you about some other possible alternatives to the conclusion that you’ve won every argument in which no one takes the other side, or just is mocking you. We have discussed this before. Is your imagination still stuck on zero other possible explanations?

owlbear1

I guess it’s a good thing that Cleveland voter didn’t have sole access to an entire county’s voting records.

IOKIYAR…

Pastafarian

Or he might have…misreported the number to the AP, preventing the Democrats from knowing precisely how many votes they needed to manufacture? Heaven forefend.

owlbear1

So are Democrats stuffing ballots or are they hiring people to vote multiple times? You keeping claiming both.

There is simply zero evidence of the first and NONE of the cases you present could alter an election.

We do know for a fact a Republican in charge of counting ballots in Wisconsin somehow FOUND 7500 ballots, on her PC, that she says she mistakenly didn’t submit until it became clear that 7500 more votes were needed for Prosser to win. Part of history.

You have a goalpost-chasing conspiracy.

IOKIYAR…

Pastafarian

So all those cases where there were more votes cast, than there were registered voters qualified to cast votes?

IOKIYAIDDBTPPINUFD.

(“It’s OK if you’re an innumerate dipshit Democrat, but the pigeonhole principle is not up for debate.”)

owlbear1

Not chasing your goalposts, Sparky.

mark f

So all those cases where there were more votes cast, than there were registered voters qualified to cast votes?

Fair warning: if you provide more than one link to damaging evidence at a time the evil and biased LGM comment software will disappear it.

hv

I think he has saved us time by admitting up front his sources are of Fox News caliber.

owlbear1

..manufactured just enough fraudulent votes to overcome those extra 7,000

By hiring thousands of homeless people to sneak in?

Pastafarian

I’m pretty sure they would have turned up in the trunk of someone’s ’77 Impala, “owlbear”. (Is that like ManBearPig?)

owlbear1

A ’77 Impala?

As opposed to the PERSONAL COMPUTER of the Republican in charge of counting the votes?

hv

Lol, the personal computer of the Repub who was already asked to make things more transparent?

Scott Lemieux

Just consider: One party favors steps that would curtail fraud, and the other opposes them — on the basis that obtaining an ID would be more onerous than, say, registering to vote.

I note that the Supreme Court decision that upheld Voter ID conceded there was not a single documented case in the last century of this kind of voter fraud affecting an election. Of course, that Indiana vote ID law excluded absentee ballots, which have produced fraud but are disproportionately cast by Republican voters.

Since you’ve conceded that the rest of your silly rambling is equally devoid of evidence further refutation is necessary.

Pastafarian

Yes, I’m sure you’re right.

There have been zero cases of voter fraud in the last century.

That guy from Cleveland — probably just wanted to get on Youtube, really, really bad.

The fact that more votes have been counted than there are registered voters in that locality — many times and in many places — that’s just Democrat voters pulling that lever extra, extra hard, giving 110%.

And yeah, why not require absentee voters to show ID too? Those guys in Iraq — they could just take a leave, and show up at the courthouse in Columbus with their driver’s license on the day that their ballot arrives. I mean, what the hell. I call shenanigans on that too.

And that whole point about how obtaining an ID is no harder than registering to vote — you’re right, that’s just silly rambling. It doesn’t even deserve your “refutation.”

wengler

You type words and string them together. I’ll give you that.

wsn

BURNS: This is a thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters. Soon, they’ll have written the greatest novel known to mankind. (reads one of the typewriters) “It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times”?! you stupid monkey! (monkey screeches) Oh, shut up.

mark f

That guy from Cleveland — probably just wanted to get on Youtube, really, really bad.

But I guess Bing doesn’t follow the motto “Don’t be evil” and scrub their results as assiduously as other search engines.

mark f

Pastafarian:

I won’t bother linking to the taped interview with the fine, upstanding citizen of Cleveland who boasted of voting 12 times for Obama, and earning $10 from ACORN for each vote.

Pastafarian’s link, dated Oct. 10, 2008 – i.e. before election day:

A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

One wonders why you were hesitant to provide this devastating link.

Malaclypse

Pastafarian’s link, dated Oct. 10, 2008 – i.e. before election day:

Vote early and often, they always say.

Hogan

That link takes me to a story about a guy who told the NY Post he registered to vote 72 times. Duplicate registrations are not in fact voter fraud, and routinely get thrown out by election boards.

Oh, but he voted for Obama twelve times? Must have been in an online poll, because the dateline on the story is 10/10/08. But hey, I’m sure the liberal NY Post altered the story in their archives because, for some reason, they thought you needed help making yourself look like a jackass.

Uncle Kvetch

Scott: “there was not a single documented case in the last century of this kind of voter fraud affecting an election”

Pastafarian: “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. There have been zero cases of voter fraud in the last century.”

And there we have it in a nutshell. Either you’re incapable of understanding the arguments that you’re attempting to rebut, or you’re deliberately misstating them.

So which is it…stupid or lying? Your choice, P.

DrDick

I do not think this is an either/or question.

Scott Lemieux

Yup. A lot from column A, and a lot from column B.

Murc

I’ll actually take a shot at this, god help me.

There have been zero cases of fraud that actually affected elections that took the form of people voting multiple times, being PAID to vote multiple times, or people ineligible to vote voting en masse.

There have certainly been times when all three of those things happened. Hell, I tried to vote illegally once; I drove to my old precinct out of habit. But in an organized way with intent to swing an election, let alone EFFICACY with regard to that goal? Never happened, not going to.

You know why? Because its the DUMBEST way possible to commit voter fraud or to rig an election. It involves massive numbers of co-conspirators, any one of which could expose you, prohibitive costs, a high risk of poll workers and election watchers sussing you out… I could go on. The way to commit voter fraud is to manufacture fake ballots attached to fake and/or dead people and dump them in the ballot pool. Replacing already cast ballots with altered ones is also a possibility but that is, again, significantly harder. In both of those cases it can require significant time and manpower to run down fraudulent individual ballots, and it can be hard to impossible to track down the specific people who dumped them into the system.

If you’re going to accuse the Democrats of voter and election fraud, accuse us of being SMART about it at least.

The sad part is, in addition to failing to produce anything more concrete than warmed-over conservative talking points and vague threats of references to Fox news…

Pastafarian also managed to fail to understand what time period “last century” means.

Murc

Nitpick: I’m not actually sure that asserting voter fraud is rampant among Democrats is an ‘attitude.’ ‘Voter fraud is bad, and I’m angry about it’ is an attitude; its a ethical position linked to an emotional stance about the subject. ‘Voter fraud is rampant among Democrats’ is something that can be empirically checked and determined; its not an attitude, or an opinion, its sort of a statement of fact.

I’m not 100% sure on the language, despite my degree, but ‘My attitude is that the sky is blue’ and ‘My attitude is that the Sun is hot’ both SOUND rather silly, don’t they? So I’m not sure using the word in the context of stating what you believe to be a fact is proper. You might want to try ‘my BELIEF towards fraud remains unchanged’ or perhaps ‘my POSITION towards fraud.’

Malaclypse

if Prosser wins this by 7,000 votes, it’s because he had about 20,000 more actual legitimate votes.

Were the rest stolen by ACORN, the New Black Panther Party, or the Reverse Vampires?

Pastafarian

The Reverse Vampires? Oh shit, there’s another one now? Is that what ACORN transmogrified into, after they were caught trying to assist a child prostitution ring?

owlbear1

..they were caught trying to assist a child prostitution ring?

You’re talking about that child prostitution ring run by Jimmy O’Keefe?

Malaclypse

Who can keep track of which child prostitution ring is run by which Republican?

timb

Are you referring to youth ministries in every Church I ever heard of? Or, are they not guilty of child prostitution if they just stick to personally abusing them?

Malaclypse

Youth ministers don’t actually pay the kids.

timb

Do the legal fees paid by the Catholic church constitute long overdue payments?

owlbear1

It’s sad none of those people caught on tape didn’t shoot him in the face a thousand times with a bazooka when he introduced himself as the head of a child prostitution ring, isn’t it?

Pastafarian

Yes, I agree. It’s sad that they embraced him and tried to help him smuggle children into the country so that he could pimp them out.

It’s sad that there are people out there like that, working in influential organizations, using public money to help exploit children.

That’s what you meant, right? Or were you just wishing ill upon someone not on “your side”?

owlbear1

I can’t even begin to imagine how much information you’ve had to avoid in order to use the word “Embrace” for what happened.

IOKIYAR…

So Jimmy O’Keefe isn’t actually running a child prostitution ring?

So just claiming to be the head of a child prostitution ring is enough to earn accolades from conservatives?

hv

owlbear1, at some point you have to stop feeding the inferior trolls. When you find yourself debating O’Keefe’s stings on a thread devoted to WI voting, you left that point behind you a loooooong time ago.

Once the thread-jacking starts, you know you’ve won. That is how conservatives say “ok, I admit I’m wrong.”

owlbear1

When you find yourself debating O’Keefe’s stings on a thread devoted to WI voting,

Yes, one Republican mendacity to the next.

It’s become a blur.

owlbear1

Once the thread-jacking starts, you know you’ve won. That is how conservatives say “ok, I admit I’m wrong.”

And just to be clear, I thought the topic of the thread was Hypocrisy and the many ways that Republicans manifest it in real time. Not just about Wisconsin.

hv

Ok, please don’t ban Pasta, ever!

The spectacle of him taking Reverse Vampires as seriously as Bart and Milhouse has been worth the price of admission.

Why not just be honest and say you think the franchise should be limited to white male landowners?

DrDick

Again, you are protecting against a totally undocumented problem for which there is no evidence and using that to marginalize traditionally Democratic voters who are least likely to have the kinds of ID you require. This is no different than the literacy tests in the South in the 60s.

One party favors steps that would curtail fraud, and the other opposes them

Well, if you’re referring to widespread, documented cases of Republican vote-caging, purging voter rolls of registered voters, and harassment of people at polls, then yes, you’re correct.

But I’ll withhold the links, because they’re to sources like the NYTimes, so you’ll just shit on them etc., etc.

Pseudonym

The Republican Party sees voting as a privilege; the Democratic Party sees voting as a right.

Incontinentia Buttocks

I’m really not in favor of banning anyone (inluding the late, unlamented Meade), but could one of our hosts please explain why Pasty’s trollish lying is any less disruptive than Meade’s behavior was?

brad

Wait… Pasta isn’t Meade?

Hogan

He only wishes he were.

Scott Lemieux

Seriously, he’s a pale imitation of Meade. I’m not saying that’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard of, but…I can’t think of another way to finish that sentence.

Malaclypse

At least he is not a pale imitation of Ace of Spades? At least he has (probably) never dug a Shit Moat around his house? At least, given his interest in child prostitution, he don’t know that he hangs out with John Derbyshire? (Derb link removed due to regulatory capture)

Beyond that, I got nothing.

hv

Meade has the benefit (?) of much closer contact with their mutual muse.

It’s sad that they embraced him and tried to help him smuggle children into the country so that he could pimp them out

.

Oh, please. If you believe this drivel you’re even more hopeless than the impression you already give.

hv

Of course he doesn’t. Spurious thread-jacking is the conservative way of saying “ok, I admit I’m wrong on this one.”

Hogan

In his case, I think it’s his way of saying “hello.”

Malaclypse

I thought it was his way of being flirty with us.

DrDick

Ewwww!

hv

I don’t think that Malaclypse’s joke is far from the mark.

Given that Pasta is going to dodge, weave, and thread-jack while ratcheting up the offensiveness until he receives the negative attention fix he needs… what does it mean that he is so generous with his own precious negative attention?

Isn’t there a similar note between Larry Craig’s furtive forays into his version of iniquity and Pasta’s forays into liberal blogs? I wonder how many times Larry Craig claimed he didn’t even want to be there, didn’t belong.